Tirofiban for Stroke without Large or Medium-Sized Vessel Occlusion
Authors: Wenjie Zi, Jiaxing Song, Weilin Kong, Jiacheng Huang, Changwei Guo, Wencheng He, Yinquan Yu, Bo Zhang, Wanjie Geng, Xiaolin Tan, Yaoyu Tian, Zongtao Liu, Minghua Cao, Daoyou Cheng, Bo Li, Wenguo Huang, Junsheng Liu, Pengfei Wang, Zhou Yu, Hao Liang, Shuang Yang, Mingshan Tang, Wenhua Liu, Xianjun Huang, Shugai Liu, Yufeng Tang, Youlin Wu, Li Yao, Zhu Shi, Pengcheng He, Haojin Zhao, Zhuo Chen, Jun Luo, Yue Wan, Qiang Shi, Maorong Wang, De Yang, Xianglin Chen, Fang Huang, Jinlin Mu, Hao Li, Zhimin Li, Jingbang Zheng, Shunli Xie, Tieying Cai, Yuqi Peng, Weihua Xie, Zhongming Qiu, Chang Liu, Chengsong Yue, Linyu Li, Yan Tian, Dahong Yang, Jian Miao, Jie Yang, Jinrong Hu, Raul G. Nogueira, Duolao Wang, Jeffrey L. Saver, Fengli Li, Qingwu Yang
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine (2023)

The effects of the glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitor tirofiban in patients with acute ischemic stroke but who have no evidence of complete occlusion of large or medium-sized vessels have not been extensively studied.In a multicenter trial in China, we enrolled patients with ischemic stroke without occlusion of large or medium-sized vessels and with a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score of 5 or more and at least one moderately to severely weak limb. Eligible patients had any of four clinical presentations: ineligible for thrombolysis or thrombectomy and within 24 hours after the patient was last known to be well; progression of stroke symptoms 24 to 96 hours after onset; early neurologic deterioration after thrombolysis; or thrombolysis with no improvement at 4 to 24 hours. Patients were assigned to receive intravenous tirofiban (plus oral placebo) or oral aspirin (100 mg per day, plus intravenous placebo) for 2 days; all patients then received oral aspirin until day 90. The primary efficacy end point was an excellent outcome, defined as a score of 0 or 1 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) at 90 days. Secondary end points included functional independence at 90 days and a quality-of-life score. The primary safety end points were death and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage.A total of 606 patients were assigned to the tirofiban group and 571 to the aspirin group. Most patients had small infarctions that were presumed to be atherosclerotic. The percentage of patients with a score of 0 or 1 on the modified Rankin scale at 90 days was 29.1% with tirofiban and 22.2% with aspirin (adjusted risk ratio, 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.04 to 1.53, P = 0.02). Results for secondary end points were generally not consistent with the results of the primary analysis. Mortality was similar in the two groups. The incidence of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage was 1.0% in the tirofiban group and 0% in the aspirin group.In this trial involving heterogeneous groups of patients with stroke of recent onset or progression of stroke symptoms and nonoccluded large and medium-sized cerebral vessels, intravenous tirofiban was associated with a greater likelihood of an excellent outcome than low-dose aspirin. Incidences of intracranial hemorrhages were low but slightly higher with tirofiban. (Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; RESCUE BT2 Chinese Clinical Trial Registry number, ChiCTR2000029502.).